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3 June 2014 - Best Beer HQ

Top 5 facts about Corona Extra

Think you know everything there is to know about Corona?

Legendary Mexican beer brand Corona is a marketing juggernaut, a veritable sales behemoth and, let’s be honest, not the best beer to grace this green earth. However, it has its time and place – usually at Mexican restaurants alongside a spicy meal, or on a beach in Mexico.

These are 5 interesting facts about Corona Extra that you can tell your mates over a cold one…

1. Corona/Coronita

In Spain, Corona is named ‘Coronita’ due to legal reasons. Depending on what you read, either the trademark is owned by the Spanish royal family, a cigar company or a ‘renowned’ Spanish wine marker.

Either way, the brewery should have been a bit quicker to file that trademark application.

2. Corona served with lime

It seems no-one knows for sure why bottles of Corona are famously served with a lime wedge all around the world. Theories range from a bartender’s bet to see if he could start a new trend to the possibility that lime was originally used to disinfect the top of the beer bottle or to keep flies away.

The most likely reason is the lime was added to mask the skunky taste of a Corona that has been left in the sun too long (its clear bottle lets in too much light, unlike green or brown beer bottles).

Then again, it might just be a clever marketing ploy to get beer websites like this one talking about its beer.

3. Corona is one of the top selling beers in the world

You probably didn’t need Best Beer HQ to tell you this, but Corona Extra is a very, very successful beer brand.

Sold in more than 150 countries around the world, Corona is the fourth best-selling beer in the world and the most popular Mexican beer. In the United States of America, Corona is the number-one imported beer in the country and the fifth best-selling beer overall.

4. Corona’s humble beginnings…

Corona Extra, as we know it today, was first brewed in Mexico in 1925 by Cerveceria Modelo and wasn’t imported to the United States of America until 1979. Can you imagine a time when you couldn’t get a Corona at a bottle shop or liquor store? We think not.

5. There’s no pee in Corona

Ever heard the story about Mexican beer workers peeing in kegs of Corona beer? Apparently it was a vicious rumour that caught on in the United States of America in the late 1980s, which caused some American supermarkets to pull the beer from their shelves.

Sales plummeted and so, desperate to restore the Corona brand’s credibility, the company managed to trace the horrible story back to one of its competitors.

So, there you have it – it was just a story fabricated by a jealous rival and there’s no urine in Corona. Well, we certainly hope there isn’t any way…